· Private foundation
John S and James L Knight Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k56 grants · $301k
- $10k–50k164 grants · $3.6M
- $50k–250k116 grants · $14M
- $250k+177 grants · $129M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | $5,000,000 |
| GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY | $4,000,000 |
| GROUNDTRUTH PROJECT INC | $3,000,000 |
| THE MIAMI FOUNDATION | $2,859,554 |
| THE MIAMI FOUNDATION | $2,800,000 |
| THE MIAMI FOUNDATION | $2,703,000 |
| THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS | $2,500,000 |
| THE LENFEST INSTITUTE FOR JOURNALISM SPECIAL ASSETS FUND OF TPF | $2,249,500 |
| THE MIAMI FOUNDATION | $2,100,000 |
| AMERICAN JOURNALISM PROJECT | $2,000,000 |
| CIVIC NEWS COMPANY | $2,000,000 |
| NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS | $1,794,500 |
| NEW WORLD SYMPHONY INC | $1,666,667 |
| INSTITUTE FOR NONPROFIT NEWS | $1,636,380 |
| FOUNDATION FOR DETROIT'S FUTURE | $1,500,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $8.9M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 15% of John S and James L Knight Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 28% of the giving stays in FL; read by stated purpose it is 25% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +35% since the first grant, against +15% for the ones you funded once.
566 repeat relationships — 233 still active in FY2024, 333 since wound down; 157 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $12M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- TUTHE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON FOUNDATION4× · 2020–2024 · $12M · revenue +136% · 72% of their budget
- UOUniversity of Miami7× · 2017–2024 · $11M · revenue +96%
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY6× · 2017–2024 · $8.6M · revenue +47%
Funded once
- NINEWSEUM INCone grant, 2017 · $2.5M · revenue -99%
- CFCOMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR SOUTHEAST MIone grant, 2018 · $2.2M
- DADOWNTOWN AKRON PARTNERSHIP INC GREYSTONE HALLone grant, 2017 · $750k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
The Television Academy is dedicated to celebrating excellence, innovation and the advancement of the telecommunications arts and sciences through recognition, education and leadership, while fostering a diverse, inclusive and accessible…
To bring quality public television programs and resources to communities throughout new jersey and its tri-state neighbors. its content, both on-air and online, aims to reflect the diverse
The mission of the organization is to foster the development of creative individuals as writers and artists and to promote public appreciation of excellence in the literary and graphic arts by publishing a magazine containing fiction,…
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
Pidc plans and implements economic development initiatives (see schedule o) which enhance the competitive environment, generate jobs and produce higher tax ratables throughout philadelphia.
New york school of interior design provides the most innovative, immersive, and transformative interior design education in the world, demonstrating the impact of professionally designed interiors on the health, happiness, and well-being…
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Heritage Foundation and the most unlike its peers is BayHaven Community. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 29 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
976 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 976 of the 1,316 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds THE MIAMI FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds University of Miami ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR DETROIT'S FUTURE ↗
- Who funds GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE INT'L CENTER FOR JOURNALISTS INC ↗
- Who funds The Pew Charitable Trusts ↗
- Who funds THE GROUNDTRUTH PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE LENFEST INSTITUTE FOR JOURNALISM SPECIAL ASSET FUND OF TPF ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds OHIO & ERIE CANALWAY COALITION ↗
- Who funds AKRON ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR NONPROFIT NEWS ↗
- Who funds CRAIG NEWMARK GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM CUNY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds New York University ↗
- Who funds THE WELL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds FAIRMOUNT PARK CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS INC ↗
- Who funds DEMOCRACY WORKS INC ↗
- Who funds MIAMI DADE COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds The George Washington University ↗
- Who funds NEWS REVENUE HUB INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds CHARLOTTE MECKLENBURG LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE NEWS LITERACY PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds MIAMI CITY BALLET INC ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR THE CAROLINAS ↗
- Who funds SOLUTIONS JOURNALISM NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds NAVICENT HEALTH FOUNDATION INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: The Miami Foundation Inc · Democracy Fund Inc · Institute for Nonprofit News · Gar Foundation · Fifty Over Fifty Inc · The Kirk Foundation · The Andrew W Mellon Foundation · The Ford Foundation · The Lenfest Institute for Journalism Special Asset Fund of Tpf · The William Penn Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Hudson-Webber Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization John S and James L Knight Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Friends of the Underline Inc — 66% of income from government
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% of income from government
- Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper Inc — 19% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Northeastern University — 7% of income from government
- Living Arts Trust Inc Dba O Cinema — 6% of income from government
- University of Miami — 5% of income from government
- The Fountainhead Residency Inc — 3% of income from government
- Digital Public Library of America — 2% of income from government
- Bakehouse Art Complex Inc — 2% of income from government
- Miami Music Project Inc — 2% of income from government
- O Miami Inc — 2% of income from government
- Nu Deco Ensemble Inc — 1% of income from government
- Wesleyan University — 1% of income from government
- The Poynter Institute for Media Studies Inc — 1% of income from government
- Wgbh Educational Foundation — 1% of income from government
- Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival Inc — 1% of income from government
- Cortico Corporation — 0% of income from government
- National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts Inc — 0% of income from government
- New World Symphony Inc — 0% of income from government
- Trinity College — 0% of income from government
- St Thomas University Inc — 0% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.